1worldflag: A blue dot on a transparent background | Hacker News Reader

1worldflag: A blue dot on a transparent background

1worldflag.com

198 pointsdavidbarker171 comments

There are lots of world flags: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Earth https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_Flag_Simple.sv...

Don't forget Futurama's: https://futurama.fandom.com/wiki/Old_Freebie

It's in the article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Earth#Futurama

…which also lists this thread’s flag, that apparently is from 2016.

I quite like the James W. Cadle one from 1970.

Yes. It has the simplicity of a traditional flag but recognisably represents the earth. The 2016 one (which this thread is about) is too similar to the Japanese flag. Or the Blaupunkt logo.

Surprisingly, none with crabs on them.

Carcinization will fix that eventually. And then Roko's Crabulisk will hunt down everyone who didn't vote for the crab flag.

Anteaters will be more likely, apparently.

https://phys.org/news/2025-07-mammals-evolved-ant-eaters-din...

Huh. Interesting.

Well, there are quite a lot of ants in the world, so I guess it makes sense.

I recently was listening to a 99 Percent Invisible podcast: Citizen of the World https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/665-citizen-of-the-wo...

It's about a guy who has been fighting for ~50 years to be able to be a citizen of no country. I left that episode thinking "This is the hero we need right now."

He has set up the World Citizen Government https://worldcitizengov.org/

Transparency in a flag is new to me. It's surprisingly effective here. Could this be done with just cloth without synthetics by using thinner threads or thread count?

The microplastics inherent in synthetics is the point.

Good one ;) and a flag should never be wet, so cover it in Teflon.

The website mentions silk organza at https://1worldflag.com/flag/. That's where my mind went initially, some kind of sheer silk fabric. I don't know how durable it would be in the elements though.

That would be the first flag that isn't vegan, which.. doesn't look very cool

I'm sure there have been plenty of flags that haven't been vegan.

You could make any flag out of non-vegan materials, sure. But that this flag was designed with the basis of cruelty (silk) makes it also conceptually non-vegan.

What a great way to unite the world in a practice of cruelty to its inhabitants

- 1worldforhumansonlyflag - 1worldindifferenttosufferingflag

The whole idea falls flat on its face because of this for me.

I also love the transparency and am surprised it hasn’t been used more. Granted, it would be very difficult to achieve with natural materials and also be durable. A flag should be able to withstand an ocean voyage exposed to the elements.

I think you pointed out very well why it hasn't been used more: lack of durability. Either it has to be some kind of plastic foil, in which case it has to be thin enough to fly in the wind the same way as a traditional flag does, so it will degrade very quickly when exposed to the elements. Or the silk organza suggested on the page, but if it's thin enough to be (almost) transparent I'm not convinced that it would fare much better.

So, nice idea, but completely impractical, which makes it a gimmick.

It's a novel and fun idea! I also wonder how it would be represented correctly as a digital image, could be as an actual png or maybe the white/grey checker pattern from PhotoShop? Realistically probably just with a white background

I feel what makes it work well here is also that it's not perfectly transparent so you can still see it wave in the wind and make out it's rectangular shape.

I'd definitely take that into consideration for a digital version.

>> I'd definitely take that into consideration for a digital version.

Finally, an application for Apple‘s Liquid Glass UI

Seems unfair to associate anything good with that abomination.

Well given there's no abuse of refractive light bending it looks more like whatever frosted glass existed before liquid glass.

Also this flag has square corners.

Not great for t-shirts

On the contrary, T-shirts of it will be very effective at calling attention to the flag.

glitter and foil will blow you away

It should be a white flag. All the colors, and the fact we embraced it as a flag of unity over a flag of surrender should say all there is to say about us getting over our differences.

Edit: From Wikipedia: (A white flag) serves as an internationally recognized sign of truce and negotiation, meaning "we want to talk". It emerged as an ideal symbol for peace because it is highly visible on the battlefield, is easy to make, and doesn't belong to any specific nation.

White flags are commonly associated with defeat in battle. Probably not the vibe one wants.

from the post you replied to:

> and the fact we embraced it as a flag of unity over a flag of surrender should say all there is to say about us getting over our differences

hard to change an association that has been around for millennia (literally)

Yeah I don’t disagree, but I think the difficulty is kind of the point in the GP’s post: it would take an unprecedented era of peace for us to collectively agree that the idea of “surrender” is an anachronism ready to be reclaimed for a better purpose.

Which is why we still worship man-with-bird-head and make sacrifices to the Sun at solstice.

White flags are easy to see in the midst of battle. Don't overthink it.

Especially if this represents the Earth in the face of aliens on other planets and they happen to know the flag of surrender... It would definitely give them the wrong impression about Earth.

A white flag used to be the flag of France: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_France_(1814...

A world flag should not use flags which were associated with a country. Evan this proposal is too derivative of the Japanese flag.

I love that they published the SVG. It's invisible.

The Japanese flag references the Sun, and it's hard to aim for astrological minimalism and not look similar. Still, the transparent background is a bad idea IMO, because a spaceship/space station with painted flags will look very funny.

Nevertheless, I think the Earth flag should include the moon too. A blue Earth, a white Moon, and a black background. When the Moon secession war starts, the laser holes in the flag could double as the starry sky.

> It should be a white flag.

And it will be.

Will be useful for the inevitable war against the offworld colonies.

I just hope that Mars is not adapting the Japanese flag...pretty bad for colorblind soldiers ;)

The Mars colonies would never choose independence!

I appreciate the ethos of unity, but in a sense it scares me were this ever to be political unity -- because I don't trust it would remain (or even ever be) democratic and free.

We see so many examples of power hurting citizens in existing nations. The risk if the entire world had one political unity, of losing freedom, is extreme.

With multiple nations and blocs, at least some remain showing an example of what can exist in the others.

The only way we'll going to achieve anything remotely akin to World Unity™ is as some form of dystopic Warhammer 40K future. You try putting even 5 people in a root have them reach consensus on anything.

I like the idea to have a symbol to unite the world under one flag.

The blue dot seems to make sense as it represents the world without focusing on one perspective or projection of the world map. The transparent background also makes sense for the flag, but I think it would be more recognizable if it was just a white background (in my mind the default flag background).

Also it seems to me transparent materials are in general more polluting. On the website it mentions a black background was considered (I suppose representing space). It would be nice if there was an alternative version chosen without the transparency for mediums where transparency is not an option either black or white would suffice imho.

As others mentioned it does seem very similar (same proportions) as the Japanese flag. I wonder what the opinion of the Japanese is on this concept.

Note that blue was an expensive colour until recent times. Painters would use it sparingly.

Nowadays blue is easy and common in flags, and much else, so this flag design is high tech.

Judging by the comments here, the 1worldflag should have been a picture of two people arguing.

Yes! Classic.

We don’t have an outside enemy atm so we squabble amongst ourselves, it’s a pattern as old as humans have gathered into groups.

Probably more fitting as the flag of HN

I would live to see the transparency around the funding and goals of this project.

Lacking transparency is a red flag.

Nothing a good conversation to PNG can’t fix

Thank you for flagging this issue.

That's deeply funny since the Japanese flag is opaque white and red

Can’t wait for CGP Grey’s review of this flag

is he still making content it feels like its been forever since ive heard anything about him

That's what we always say between videos :P

He's got a regular monthly podcast called Codex if you're into that format too.

*cortex

Oops, my bad! Thanks for correcting!

He hasn't been on cortex for over a year

Oh... I didn't realize, thanks for clarifying!

Like so many other creators, seems like Grey’s main focus might now be on podcasts. Easier to produce and monetise.

Seems like his work now is just keep changing thumbnails of his old videos to bait me into rewatching it.

He's been radio silent for 9+ months. No videos, no podcasts.

People have been speculating on his reddit subs, but honestly anything from early retirement, to stay at home dad, to sabbatical, to serious illness is completely possible. The parasociality of everything has probably gotten old over time, too.

The Land of the Rising Sea.

I don't like the color blue. Can we change it?

Humanity's working on it, lol

That’s really interesting.

Currently, Japan’s ruling party, the LDP, is considering legislation to criminalize the desecration of the Japan flag. If that law is passed, carrying that flag would constitute a crime of desecrating the Japan flag. Even without such a law, simply carrying that flag would likely prompt the far right to view it as an alteration of the Japan flag and attack you for it.

- LDP pushes flag desecration law; expert questions its necessity | The Asahi Shimbun: Breaking News, Japan News and Analysis: https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/16506155

Someone made a flag to express unity and we've just all come here to argue about it. How very human.

Are not ~all flags made to express unity?

However that one looks better: https://www.flagofplanetearth.com/

Fight me :)

I wouldn't trust any flag with a hexiform shape. I mean, hexagons can be found in the wild but one perfect circle reflects better our human nature

What are these marketing sites advertising the Earth flag? Who's buying?!

Ford Prefect as a Souvenir?

>Are not ~all flags made to express unity?

Usually the unity of some humans against other humns.

I can't help but be distracted by the 26MB flag video that my fibre connection is only able to download at 150 KB/sec here in New Zealand?

It's totally worth the wait.

Love the idea.

But the transparency :( It makes the whole flag low contrast, an undesirable quality in flags.

Blue needs to be paler, and the dot smaller ;-)

I was disappointed it wasn't a pale blue dot as well.

Yeah, it’s more like a saturated blue giant circle.

Like all flags, this will come to represent those who choose to fly it, and the causes they fly it for. Which then makes them symbols of the ideas opposed by people who think flag waving is cringe.

How about a pale blue dot on a black background

"govvie bad so we make giga govment, then no bad"

Instead of cool cool water make it an income distribution chart. More realistic.

So this is effectively the Esperanto of flags?

Yep, that no one uses too.

Esperanto actually already has a flag

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esperanto_symbols#/media/File%...

He asked about the Esperanto of flags, not about the flags of Esperanto.

Wouldn't the Esperanto of Flags be the flag of Esperanto?

The Esperanto of sign languages wouldn’t inherently be the sign language of Esperanto. The same goes for flags.

I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree!

I suppose a lot of flags are esperanto of flags...

I don't like it and I wasn't consulted about it. Given it is supposed to be representative of a united humanity or something like that, I'd be interested to know what proportion of the 8 billion people were consulted in its creation.

Try to add a favicon for the website if you can guys, a blue dot would work well here.

Very cool, hard to beat the Earthican flag though

https://theinfosphere.org/images/1/17/Earth_Flag.svg

Did you miss an "/s"? That's horrendous!

Not at all - it's clearly intended as a threat. /s

Yes it’s from Futurama

This will be needed for the galactic civil wars that will soon take place.

Holy typo… does the one world not have proofreaders?

Nope! They were sent off along with other useful professionals such as telephone cleaners on a big space ship!

I love the initiative, I understand the transparency, although it doesn't really look that great imo.

Is there information on the license of this flag? Not how/if clear you can reproduce it legally.

The apotheosis of Reddit vexillology where all flag symbolism maps to geographical features.

Will we put this flag on the moon?

How would we represent this as a sticker on a vehicle?

White outline around the clear field w blue dot?

What if we took Japan’s flag, imagined it printed on paper, but made the dot blue?

The Empire of the Rising Blue Ink Dot (of the unelected EU bureaucracy).

That grade of blue is more like Neptune than earth, or blue giant.

It should be a different color, because this will be attached to either politics (which you don't want) or EU (which you also don't want), some completely independent color could actually trigger curiosity to look it up.

I believe its a reference to the planet being a pale blue dot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Dot

Disagree, though you’re right it’s a little bit similar to the eu flag, but only a little, plenty of countries manage with more similar flags.

Flags don’t exist for the period where they’re gaining recognition. Compromising the significance of the iconography for the temporary gain of not being misidentified during the period it isn’t recognisable would just mean if it gains recognition it will forever be less than it could be.

In other words, with flags you need to play to win, not to survive. Better that the attempt have a higher risk of failure with a great flag than a lower risk with a mediocre flag.

The pale blue dot is an excellent way to represent a global outlook and “we’re all in it together”, not sure I can think of a better pedigree for this concept. I’d perhaps have been tempted to make it a smaller blue dot, but flags do need to be recognised at a distance, so it can’t be too much smaller.

I like the direction of unity but this will probably be problematic when we eventually start to colonize other planets. I don't want our first settlers to feel discriminated, so please kindly make a new version with more universality - now that I think about it, Universal Pictures also has the world in their logo so maybe this IS universal but we probably we need Jim and Hannah in the loop as well so they can chime in, and last but not least, we need a review from the legal so I CC'd to all, expect some new ideas/requirements.

Also, can we please make it "pop"?

ps. Attaching a version I made, and this took a lot of back and forth with chatgpt because I care about this a lot, so please have a look, I think we are close to something great here!

Looking forward to seeing more from you!

ps2. when I was about to send our manufacturing guy entered the room and he said the transparency could be a problem. Some alternatives without compromising the idea would be great! They must be cheap but elegant! Thank you!!

> we eventually start to colonize other planets.

Could you please clarify which ones? I'm planning my escape, but it seems that even lightspeed wouldn't be enough to colonize anything suitable.

Eh? If you go at light speed you can literally go everywhere in the universe subjectively instantly due to time dilation.

> If you go at light speed

I will certainly not. And even if I did — within any reachable radius there's nothing actually suitable, everything is 10+ ly away, but maybe I missed something.

If you were traveling very close to light speed, time dilation would mean your experience of time is slowed down, such that if you can go infinitely close to the speed of light, you can travel anywhere as quickly as you have the energy for. For an observer on Earth you'd still take however many lightyears away the location is.

If you did go at 99.999999% or whatever 10 light years away means basically no time for you. That's how time dilation works. Or, from your subjective experience, the faster you go, the shorter the distance. If you go REALLY fast, the distance shrinks to nothing. Those two perspectives are the same way to think about the same underlying time/distance transformation that happens.

but that's the wrong shade of blue? It'd have been great if they took the colour from "The blue marble" instead of this Turbo Pascal blue.

Maybe they couldn't find American Flag Blue??? Or is that reserved for swimming pools now?

What do you mean by "wrong"?

I reckon the actual color doesn't matter as long as it's blue-ish. There are no branding guidelines or anything. Even the size of the circle is unspecified, which IMO is a feature, not a bug. It's accessible :)

EDIT: I'm incorrect, there is a spec. Whelp! I still like my imagined more-flexible version of the flag.

It is the 16-color VGA version of blue, not the version of blue you'd pick if you had a 24-bit color display.

This website reminds me of the early 90s internet because of the specific shade of blue they picked.

Modern invented flag peddlers only seek to have us fly flags of the division they seek to generate. I only fly the flag of the country I live in and give side eye to anyone that does otherwise.

Is this a trend? Do you have any other examples? And what division would a world flag generate??

> And what division would a world flag generate?

It's just a way of saying that you're too good for your neighbors. That's why it would appeal to liberals and libertarians alike.

Some enjoy their local cultures, customs and sovereignty and do not wish to dissolve into a homogenized nowhere-land of world culture/governance. Some people do not cheer for dystopia.

Continue with the scold though, very convincing argument so far.

Looks too much like japan’s flag.

Let’s try an earth and a sunrise behind it - half a circle sitting on the bottom of the rectangle, and a yellow circle making a sunrise on top of that, like a yolk sitting on a blue egg.

Looks like something out of 1997.

I like this. And furthermore, it is my opinion that all current nation states should be dismantled.

And replaced with what?

Have you read the utopian book "Starship Troopers" from Heinlein ;)

It had a real Mary Poppins feel when interacting with the skinnies.

That can be figured out after the dismantling process :)

My personal utopian take: smaller communities/city-states that would naturally coalesce into more fluid confederations. A lot of these communities could also be distributed and non-local.

Money.

good opinion and one that most agree with

what most don't agree with: what happens next?

civil war?

>all current nation states should be dismantled.

Fun fact. Just people who live in a shitty country want that, maybe instead of change everyone else, change you own country?

I am from so called 1st world, how do you define “shitty country”, are there better ones?

Yes and it's really easy.

Are the vast majority happy? = Good one

If not = Shitty

Example? Norway[1] = good, Sudan[2] = really..really shitty

[1] https://www.bi.no/en/research/business-review/articles/2025/...

[2] https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2025/sudan-voices/

To be honest, those two are so far apart it's not even comparable.

German here, I want the same. We are one species inhabiting a single habitable world in a giant dead void. Nationalism is an idiotic game of no value that causes destruction of resources we need, senseless killing in wars over nothing, and ultimately merely a distraction from everything that’s really important.

The paradox of tolerance applies though. It helps to keep the intolerants at bay.

No borders doesn't mean no rules.

Nothing against a Coordinating body like the UN, and really small states (lets call them community's).

But there is no "we are the world, we are the children", future is probably more like US/EU/EAU (east asia union), now you have 3 big blocks fighting against each other (much higher world-ending chance). More power = more bully....

>everything that’s really important.

Yes your right, and talking...even with a enemy should be considered the base for future world-freedom.

No, I'm absolutely aware that we are - as of now - unable to get past the pettiness of nationality and tribalism. Maybe it's so ingrained in us, we'll never get past that, I don't know.

It's just massively frustrating to see what humanity could accomplish if we weren't occupied bashing our heads in over religion, nationality, or color of skin. The planet - the only planet - is dying, people and animals are suffering, and the news are dominated by a particular clown and his circus. It's really unbearable sometimes.

>The planet - the only planet - is dying, people and animals are suffering, and the news are dominated by a particular clown and his circus. It's really unbearable sometimes.

Oh man you speak from my heart, it's like we live on a star-ship, but everyone looks just at their own room instead of steering the ship into a better future.

EDIT: However, as we see a shift from the UN (as a future captain?) to NATO (at least in the so called "West"), i see dark times ahead of us.

> It's just massively frustrating to see what humanity could accomplish if we weren't occupied bashing our heads in over religion, nationality, or color of skin.

Resenting the real world because it doesn't live up to your make-believe fantasy world is pathological. I too can imagine perfect utopian worlds where everybody lives in peace and harmony, but they're just fantasies. Eventually you have to come back to the real world and learn to accept the harsh truths of the reality you find yourself inhabiting.

That's not what I have said. Imagine you have a mentally challenged brother you love dearly, who continues to run head-first against a wall. That's what it feels like. Doesn't mean I'm not aware and accepting of the reality we all live in.

Edit: And honestly, I find it a bit pathological to take the sentence you quoted upfront and not feeling similar resentment against those things. Granted, Humans are a belligerent species, but just shrugging these things away is really not an acceptable stance either.

> Eventually you have to come back to the real world and learn to accept the harsh truths of the reality you find yourself inhabiting.

I don't know why I feel so much contempt for people like you. I kinda get it, you want to feel intellectually superior. You're the reasonable one, the adult in the room, etc. but seriously bro, this reality is so fucking harsh. What keeps you going? Why are you still here and going through with it?

>Resenting the real world because it doesn't live up to your make-believe fantasy world is pathological.

I dont think world-peace (more or less) is impossible, even if it's more like "Brave New World" instead of "1984".

Or maybe something like the UN with a strong peace-force and WITHOUT a security council but a real and fair democratic decision process.

And maybe the most important point, i have not seen real War-Winners (except the mil.-industrial-blabla) since the 2. World-war....just losers on both sides.

I've lived in several different countries. There are nice people everywhere. The country governments are shitty everywhere.

> The country governments are shitty everywhere.

Compared to what?

Honestly, compared to any random sample of non-retarded and non-malicious people you can find.

Funny i live in a country where the people are the government, and with your knowledge of different country's, the future World-Government would not just be shitty but untouchable mighty. I want really small, face to face responsible governments.

> the people are the government

A lot of countries claim that. I think that can only work at a small scale.

> I want really small, face to face responsible governments

We are not that different :)

Why would a world government be any better?

It’s a nice goal, but no thank you. In my opinion, more of the world needs to be all but quarantined.

I expect there are many people who agree with this sentiment, unfortunately they might not agree on precisely which areas ought to be quarantined. And those who happen to live in the areas you want to quarantine might disagree most vigorously.

It sounds like we just need something like..national borders, eh ;)

I wish so too, but clearly this is not in any way practical. The EU is the closest thing we got to "fewer borders"

We can always dream and then find ways to make it practical :)

It's encouraging I didn't get downvoted as much as I expected I would.

if cannot merge into 1, at least we can make it a few. 200+ is a waste of resources on so many levels.. so many countries really don't need to exist and have shitty a government...

Nothing says "I care about the earth" like a giant sheet of plastic.

The flag is not plastic.

https://1worldflag.com/flag/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organza

Global government sounds terrible. Most people don’t live in western liberal democracies, so I assume a world government would be something other than that. I have no interest in living under a government that promises the average political, religious, personal and economic environment of the world.

ALL flags(standards/banners) are war symbols, declarations of intent to attack and of terrtory held by conquest, tribes,nations, and franchises alike. Any attemp to float the idea of a world flag is a (hidden attempt) of a declaration of total war on all countrys simultaneously, which unfortunatly is too ridiculous to even get points on style. Fashists always have some sort of fashion kink branding thing plus a cult of personality to get things going, but this one needs WAY too much explaining.

This is simply not true.

Pride flags.

Edit: Also the Esperanto Flag.

pride flags, ha!, used durring "pride marches"

hung out directly with national, corporate, municipal flags,are you kidding me?

ALL flags are teritorial/tribal declarations with violence (police,security), as the ONLY default response to a challenge

so what? exactly? will happen if someone makes a habit of pulling down "pride" flags?

If you're going to change my mouse pointer into a circle can you at least make the activation point the centre of the circle?

As someone living in Omaha, this has just a little bit of a conflict lmao.....

the most european thing i’ve seen today

Esperanto flag.

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